Mastering ice-skating

Now we are all into it. The whole family on skates. 

No. 1 is our daughter:

No. 2 and 3 my husband in connection with our son:

No. 4 me myself hidden behind the camera. No picture.

I am really proud of Wanda. She is mastering the skills, she enjoys the activity, she is eager to learn and she is really good at it. And me too. The first time after such a long break was tough, but I'm doing better each time. And if you have you own ice-skates the sport is really easy to make and cheap and doesn't require much effort. Ice-skates rinks as I said before are scattered around Helsinki. We have the one pictured above in our neighborhood. It is a so called natural rink, what basically means, if the temperatures go above zero it melts. But it is mainained by the city, so it is cleaned from snow, there is a building next by where you can change. If you would like to check, if there is one in your area look at this link: Natural Ice-Skates Rinks. There are also few artificial, which means they are somehow kept frozen even if the weather condition tells you the ice should melt. You can find them here: Artificial Skating Rinks. We used to go to Brahenkantta, but be careful and first check the web site for the opening hours. On the weekends they close the rink in the middle of the day. There is also a coin machine and you are suppose to pay 3 euros for the entrance. Once when I went there it was out of order and there was no one there to charge you. For the "posh" ice-skating visit The Icepark located on the Rautatientori, that is Central Railway Station square. Adults pay 6 and kids 4 euros, you can rent the skates for 6 euros too. And I think they lowered the prices comparing to last year. It is a nice place especially if you live downtown, are coming with friends, since there is a quite cosy cafe and music. But of course the rink is not very big, so if you are an ice-skate savvy you probably would like to have more space for pirouettes. 

Minä opiskelen suomea

Minä opiskelen suomea - I'm studying Finnish - and man, it's hard! I mean, I have fun. I like it. I know I should study more at home, really learn all I had in the class and whenever I sit at a table and open my book Suomen Mestari 1, I see how little I know, how hard it is to memorize all the words and all their grammatical forms and how even harder or almost impossible it is to start to use this language. Every time I go out to make groceries, to buy tickets, to ask a mom playing with her kids in a park about those kids, like age or names, so every time I wish I would speak Finnish and I am searching for words but only very few are coming to me and never enough to start a conversation. Little things, but so hard to do this. This is actually the first time in my life when I have an opportunity to study a language (I mean from scratch) in a country if its origin. This means I do have lots of opportunities to use whatever I've learned in the class. This is helpful and I can see it. For example the fact that I've been living in Finland for almost three and a half years helps a lot. I am very familiar with a sound of the language. Even before I started the course I already knew many words - words of food products, some simple verbs or basic adjectives. Of course I didn't know how to conjugate them, but at least a few I've known.
Is Finnish harder than other languages? No, I don't think so. It is just different. And because there is only those 5.5 million Finns who are speaking it, you probably have never ever heard it before. And of course in my case it is also that I am learning it as an adult. All the other languages I learned in my life, that is English, German or French I had during my school years. Was it easier that time? I don't remember, probably not so or I just didn't pay much attention to that. But kids take it easy and are just used to learn many new things, many different subjects, some easy and some difficult. Kids also take it for granted that they are not proficient in anything yet and that they don't understand many things. As an adult and being proficient in one foreign language, like English, you - wanting it or not - you compare your knowledge. For example you can of course speak, write and read books and newspapers in English, so you think - when will I able to do this with my Finnish? But at the same time you forget that you were learning English since primary school and Finnish you started four months ago.
But I can say now that Finnish is quite a logical language. The grammar is very different from all the roman or germanic or slavic languages, but if you are able to think outside the box it doesn't seem so hard. Just stop comparing everything to English or to your mother-tongue - whatever language it is. What is quite simple in Finnish is how you read. Basically you have to read every single letter in a word. There are some hard to pronounce sounds - but of course it is always very subjective and depends what's you mother-tongue. You decline all nouns and adjectives and of course conjugate verbs, but so it is in all slavic languages, it exists to some extend in German too. On the other hand in Finnish you don't have masculine or feminine or neutral forms! Not only for things and animals but also for people. There is only one form - equality in every sense :)
What else? I feel quite lucky because we have a cool teacher, charismatic, funny and energetic, so it is really fun to attend the classes. And the group is also good. Very international. Most are quite committed to it and really want to study. Some are moms like myself. Others just young people who happened to come to Finland. So far so good. Hyvää paivää!

In Finland you are born in ice-skates

Have you ever been to any ice-skate rink in Finland? Were you cautiously walking on the ice afraid of falling down, ashamed of being the only adult not able to move on smoothly forwards and backwards and being in panic because you just noticed you have no idea how to stop. And of course you are surrounded by all those kids from the age of 4 and wild youths who seem to be born with ice-skates. Yes, this is Finland. Literally everyone knows how to ice-skate. Kindergarten-aged kids go to ice-skate rinks during day care time, like my dauthter last week. Just instead of playing in a park. When the winter is cold enough you can find dozens of so called natural ice-skate rinks around the city. All football fields are covered with smooth ice, all lakes and puddles are turned into ice-skate rinks and of course you have also several artificial rinks, which can work even when temperatures go above zero. This year so far only the latter are available, cause the winter looks so so, too warm and too grey so far.
But anyway, going back to my skills. Unfortunately I am such a person as I mentioned above. No, no, it is not my first time ever wearing ice-skates. I used to do it a little when I was a kid (in Poland we do ice-skate), but first - I was a kid quite a while ago, second - I never took any instructions of how to properly skate, so I was always bad in this, third - standing on the ice again after... well, many years, is strange enough feeling to be afraid of moving. Falling down when you are close to 40 is not such a piece of cake as if you are five, like my daughter. But for this winter season my goal is to master my ice-skating skills. My and my daughter's of course. We are both very committed to this idea and passionate about it. Wish us good luck and good weather!